


into the night, out of the dark

by eynn



Series: i can't go back and lose it all [14]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Nobody Dies, Post-Order 66, also anidala is horrible at naming things, anakin does some gardening in his head, and padme has a baby while scaring rex, and rex has an entirely different frame of reference for acceptable names, dooku has some introspective moments as he tries to be a good sith grandfather, in fact somebody is born so the amount of death can be measured in negative numbers, sith!jedi order, surprise! it's . . . not twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23491408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eynn/pseuds/eynn
Summary: Dooku sits in a chair by the window that looks over the Coruscant skyline and wonders what this upheaval will mean for the Force. It feels better than it has for years, the taint of Sidious gone, but also with something else harder to define or feel but no less oppressive gone as well.Being a grandmaster was harder than it had always appeared. A grandmaster that was actually doing their job, anyway.~Anakin’s been wandering around his mindscape for what feels like centuries. It’s dim and misty, and all his limbs are heavy, but he woke up some time ago and can’t get back to sleep. He’s alone; there are no more gateways and doors to other peoples’ mind. He can still sense them brushing up against his shields occasionally, though.That comforts him more than he is willing to admit. He’s not forgotten.
Relationships: (the beginnings of it anyway), Asajj Ventress/Quinlan Vos, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/CT-7567 | Rex/Anakin Skywalker
Series: i can't go back and lose it all [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658362
Comments: 41
Kudos: 906





	into the night, out of the dark

It’s been a hectic few days. Yan Dooku takes advantage of the amenities at the Jedi Temple; there is clean water, actual beds and rooms to live in, no danger of running out of fresh air, and decent food. Those are things that he had taken for granted not long before, but ever since he had gone on the run from Sidious with Asajj and later the Dathomiri brothers, they had been in short supply.

With the Temple being so empty, they’d been shown to a wing of guest rooms and told to pick whatever they wanted. Asajj has the rooms right across from him and Maul and Savage are sharing one a little further down. Feral nominally is staying there as well, but he spends more time in the infirmary helping care for the injured.

The rest of the . . . Sith? Grey Jedi? Rogue Force-users? still spend most of their time together, either in the infirmary, the Council room, or the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Even though it is their home and they all have quarters, they prefer to drag around the thin mattresses that the clone troopers brought over from their barracks and sleep on those when they are so tired they can no longer stand up.

He doesn’t understand it.

It’s clear that the Jedi Order had been slowly rotting from within for years. Skywalker married, his wife about ready to give birth to their child; Secura and Unduli married to their clone commanders; his own grandpadawan in . . . some kind of relationship with his own clone commander; his old Master constantly dropping in just to chat without judgement and on one extremely disturbing occasion, to apologize tearfully for failing him.

Dooku sits in a chair by the window that looks over the Coruscant skyline and wonders what this upheaval will mean for the Force. It feels better than it has for years, the taint of Sidious gone, but also with something else harder to define or feel but no less oppressive gone as well.

He’s a little worried about Maul. The last of the compulsions on him had dissolved as soon as Sidious’ head hit the floor, so at least he doesn’t have to worry about having to run interference constantly to keep Maul from killing Kenobi. But it looks more and more as if Feral has found a home here among the Grey, if they will have him, and he wonders how Maul will take letting his baby brother go.

And then there’s Quinlan. Dooku shudders and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing his brain to forget what he saw when he walked into Asajj’s rooms earlier that morning and found her and Quinlan . . . yes. He had never wanted to see that much of either of them.

It looked as if he was not going to have to wait to figure out what exactly was going on with Obi-Wan and Commander Cody to have a marriage in his lineage.

And the way that Feral stuck to the side of the Mirialan knight – what was her name, Unduli’s former padawan – made him suspect that perhaps a third couple would follow soon.

Well, Quinlan was undoubtedly a good match for Asajj’s temperament, and the Mirialan knight _had_ beheaded Sidious, and Cody seemed to genuinely care for Obi-Wan and to be a brave man. And he was practically an expert on getting the stubborn man to sleep and eat and practice other basic forms of self-care.

Dooku sighs, finding being a grandmaster harder than it had always appeared. A grandmaster that was actually doing their job, anyway.

He admits to being most preoccupied with Obi-Wan. He hadn’t paid much attention to him as a padawan and by the time he was finally knighted, he had been long gone. The bright, stubborn, clever child he remembers has somehow turned into a tired and quiet man, seemingly in perpetual mourning for something. Had Qui-Gon’s death really affected him that much?

He had been at his grandpadawan’s side when he finally woke two days after the battle. Obi-Wan had taken the news of his lost arm quietly, with an almost blank resignation in his eyes. He had asked only after Master Ti, and after Skywalker. Then he had relapsed into a kind of waking coma, and only Commander Cody or Senator Amidala could coax him to eat or drink or sleep.

It had been clear that his presence was only unsettling the young man (though he must be in his thirties by now, Dooku muses. Time had passed so quickly while he was under Sidious’ thumb), so he had retreated to assist Master Secura and Yoda in unraveling the Force leech and the manipulations Sidious had woven into Skywalker’s mind and soul.

Dooku still hates Sidious, but he can’t help but admire the years of patience and the skillful work that went into warping Skywalker since he was only an embryo. He hasn’t told anyone else yet, but the way the boy’s body and mind is attuned to the Force reminds him so very strongly of some of the boasts Sidious made in his most arrogant and confident moments. He’s very nearly certain that Sidious created the child somehow, using the Force, and released him into it to find an adequate mother to bear him.

It will be safe to wake him once they remove the remnants of the Force leech, and he knows that either that day or the next, they would be done. Dooku sighs. Then he will have to contend with Skywalker’s dramatics on top of worrying about Obi-Wan.

Dooku stills and then sighs again. _Yes,_ he admits to himself. _I am worried about Obi-Wan._

~

The next day, he is standing a little back when Master Secura and one of the clone medics remove the IV sedative from Skywalker’s flesh arm. He will wake naturally in under an hour.

Senator Amidala is perched on the bed across from her husband. She looks worried, her face drawn, and she keeps one arm protectively around the child she carries. The captain of Skywalker’s men stands beside her and she is clinging to his hand as she has been doing since they all arrived back from defeating Sidious.

Dooku watches them curiously. There appears to be a mutual respect and affection between them, but also a strange devotion to Skywalker. He decides not to get involved. Obi-Wan can handle the dramatics of interpersonal relationships with his former padawan. That is, if he ever takes an interest in anything ever again. He’s still motionless on a bed in the corner of the infirmary. Various members of his 212th squadron take turns keeping him company.

Feral is working with Knight Offee, the Mirialan knight, and changing Master Fisto’s bandages. He is awake and must be in considerable pain from the cross-body slash that nearly killed him, but he is trying to smile and be pleasant to them as they gently lift and turn him.

Master Ti is the only other wounded still in the infirmary; the clones crowd around her constantly and the Force-sensitives mostly leave her be. She is recovering slowly but steadily from Sidious’ attack, and Dooku is honestly shocked that she survived it. He’s never seen anyone who did before. She’s even awake and lucid for short intervals during the day.

Everyone came back from the fight more or less wounded, and they all received the same level of care. Even Savage had his wounds tended to by one of the clone medics, and Asajj had her leg set and healed by Master Secura. It’s more than Dooku ever expected when he let Quinlan and Asajj talk him into allying himself with them.

A gasp startles him out of his introspection. He’s been staring at that one piece of hair that stubbornly falls into his grandpadawan’s face, but he turns around to see Senator Amidala bent over, her knuckles white as she grips the captain’s hand. Master Secura is kneeling in front of her.

“Looks like the baby’s coming,” she says cheerfully, helping the captain get the Senator to her feet. “Good thing we’re all ready for them, then. Barriss, do you want to help me?”

Barriss – Knight Offee – looks torn. She glances worriedly at Master Fisto.

“I will assist Feral, if you would like to go.” Dooku surprises himself by speaking up.

He misses the flicker of confusion in Obi-Wan’s eyes.

Knight Offee bites her lip, but then nods, thanks him politely, and hurries out after Master Secura as she escorts the Senator to the room they have set up for the birth.

Dooku walks over, rolling up the sleeves of his robes, and tries to look neutral as he sees Fisto’s wound close up for the first time. He remembers him as an infant in the creche. Something inside his chest aches at the sight of so much pain and death.

Fisto gives him a tiny grin and then goes back to holding himself still as Feral cleans some of the smaller cuts.

Several of the clone medics, as well as Crechemaster Skywalker, drift in and out of the room where the Senator is. Master Koon turns up to sit with Skywalker in their place.

Dooku finds himself grudgingly respecting the Order he walked away from in disgust.

~

Anakin’s been wandering around his mindscape for what feels like centuries. It’s dim and misty, and all his limbs are heavy, but he woke up some time ago and can’t get back to sleep. He’s alone; there are no more gateways and doors to other peoples’ mind. He can still sense them brushing up against his shields occasionally, though.

That comforts him more than he is willing to admit. He’s not forgotten.

He’s only felt Obi-Wan once or twice, but Luminara has nudged his mind several times, Aayla and Plo are steady presences, and he thinks he felt Master Yoda, Master Windu, and Shaak all brush his mind with surprising amounts of genuine worry and care.

There have been flickers of others as well, but too faint for him to be able to tell who they were.

There are only so many laps around his own mind he can make before he starts to tinker with it. He moves around some of the larger wrecks, making a central square in the middle of the maze. He builds bunkers and hides around it so that he can see everything that goes on without being seen. He starts building a tower to watch from, but gives up on it after getting about his own height off the ground because it’s harder work then he guessed it would be. He’ll try again later.

He turns his attention to the wall around the junkyard, noting with disgust that it’s dirty, covered in mud and oil and creeping vines which, now that he really looks at them, aren’t that nice-looking after all. He digs around for some rags and scoops up some water from the stream in a broken bit of engine casing and sets to work.

The dirt and oil come off with some good scrubbing, but the vines. The vines are harder. He wishes he had some way of making his lightsaber appear in his mindscape, because he suspects that’s the only thing that can successfully cut through the stems of the tough little bastards. They’ve crept everywhere throughout the space, insidious and unobtrusive.

Anakin tries tracing one of the vines to the ground and digging it up by the roots. It goes well for a moment, but as soon as he gets a good grip on it and yanks, a shooting pain tears through him and sends him to his knees.

When he can see again through watering eyes, the vine is withered in his hand, the place where it had been rooted a gaping hole, and a thin trickle of blood is leaking from his nose.

Anakin drops the vine, which turns to dust, and scrambles away from it. It’s not just scenery he built in his mind to make it comfortable for himself. It’s something else, something that’s invading.

He wipes his nose on his sleeve and stares around. There’s so much of the vine.

Well, he has a lot of time on his hands.

Anakin begins to dig for the root of the next vine.

~

He’s mostly been focusing on the young vines, the ones no thicker than his little finger. Some of them are terrifyingly large now that he knows they didn’t come from him; one of the ones he thinks might be the original one is stuffed into a crack in his walls and it’s almost bigger than he is.

Blood is drying on his lips and he thinks there’s some around his ears and in his hair, but he’s getting used to the pains he gets when he yanks out the roots. It’s almost like an electrical shock, but also a deep spasm inside him.

Anyway, he’s been electrocuted plenty in the war and he’s still alive, and this is only in his mind, after all, so he’s just fine. It’s only a bit of blood.

He’s pretty sure that Padmé and Rex and Obi-Wan would yell at him anyway.

There’s a small trail of ash-like dust behind him as he works his way around the wall pulling out the young vines and leaving the older, stubborner ones. There are enough parts of things lying around that he can build something to help him lever out those once he gets the small ones cleared away.

Without warning, the vines suddenly rise up and try to entangle him. He screeches in shock and leaps away towards the little tower he built, hitting them with the piece of rusty metal he’s been using as a makeshift shovel. The vines hiss and crackle with puffs of clinging smoke as he bats at them, and he coughs.

Anakin pulls his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose and keeps swinging at the vines as they try to follow him up the tower. The big one is heaving and bucking in the crack in his walls, and it _hurts_. Lights are exploding behind his eyes and he feels heavier and more helpless than ever. The vines crawl up the tower faster than he can fight them off and overwhelm him, trying to force their way down his throat and up his nose.

Anakin screams, curling up into a ball and desperately trying to draw his shields around him and _push_.

For a horrible moment he thinks he’s going to die here, trapped in his own mind and under attack by sentient vines that are someone else’s fingers meddling in his soul, but then he can almost feel his angel beside him, making the vines shiver and loosen their grip just slightly. Another Force presence joins his and for a moment he’s disorientated, seeing both his mindscape and some bare room in what looks like the Temple, Aayla hovering above him, pinning his shoulders down while behind her and leaning somewhere around his middle is Padmé. He thinks he sees Ahsoka too, just for a heartbeat, while the Force screams around him, and he reaches out towards her like she’s his only hope.

Then the vines retreat, his vision clears, and he’s draped facefirst half off his guard tower in his mindscape with everything going dark.

~

Dooku is sitting quietly at Master Fisto’s side when Skywalker begins to wake. The boy goes from a dead sleep to sitting up remarkably fast, shooting up to sit with his legs bent and his arms around his knees. He’s looking around wildly.

“Padmé?” he says, and then he sees Dooku. His eyes narrow and he reaches for where his lightsaber should be.

Master Koon reaches out and takes Skywalker’s mechanical hand in both of his. “Anakin, it’s all right. The Count helped us kill Darth Sidious. He’s a friend now.”

Dooku considers this and then, reluctantly, nods. Anakin is his great-grandpadawan after all, whether they like it or not.

“I apologize for the wrongs I have done to you in the past, Skywalker,” he says with a stiff little bow. “My loyalties no longer lie anywhere near Sidious and I wish no harm upon anyone in this Temple.”

Skywalker stares at him, his jaw dropping unattractively. Dooku sighs. He understands that raising and training a padawan taken on at a cruelly young age and during a time of great stress is difficult, and overall, he is very proud of Obi-Wan for the job he did. But Skywalker has no manners or subtlety at all.

Master Koon must do something to draw his attention, because Skywalker turns to face him, ignoring Dooku entirely. “Where’s Padmé?” he demands again.

“She is safe and well, Anakin,” Koon says calmly. “Aayla and Kix and Barriss are assisting her; she went into labor about an hour ago and is doing just fine. Several of the other clone medics are there as well and they have done extensive research on childbirth since this chain of events began.” He stops. “Your mother Shmi is also with her.”

Skywalker’s body language at that statement intrigues Dooku; the boy goes stiff for a moment, a tiny tremble runs through him, and then he slumps over so quickly that Koon narrowly saves him from overbalancing and crashing off the bed to the floor.

“I – I don’t – I remember her dying in my arms, but I remember her coming home here to us – I don’t know what’s real and what’s the things those vines put in my head – I don’t understand, I can’t – Plo?”

Koon lets Skywalker bury his face in his shoulder and does not seem disgusted or disapproving at all. Indeed, he begins to carefully stroke Skywalker’s back with his claws and says something to him in a low rumble that Dooku cannot make out. He turns his attention back to watching over Fisto, but he is asleep again and the monitors hooked up to him show that he is doing well.

Truly, the Jedi have changed so much from what he knew.

~

Kix won’t let him near Padmé until he’s gone through a full exam and he’s had his head checked out by Yoda. A few days before, Anakin would have sulked and protested and been furious at the delay. Now, he feels oddly empty. The well of rage that had always been there for him to draw on, strong and deep, is barely a puddle.

He shivers, remembering that biggest vine.

Willingly opening his shields, he lets Yoda into his mindscape, bracing himself for the expected pain of letting someone else in. It doesn’t come.

“Much damage, you have survived,” Yoda says, going over to the crack where the vine had more or less imploded. “A weaker being, killed, it would have. Proud of you I am.”

Anakin sits on the wing of a rusting scout ship and watches in disbelief as Yoda prods gently at the places where the vines had grown. It aches a little, but it also feels good. Like someone putting ointment on a burn.

“Failed you, we did. Difficult this would have been to notice but watching we should have been.” Yoda’s ears flatten as he comes closer to Anakin. “Deeply sorry, I am. Freedom to smack me with my own stick if again I do it, you have.”

Anakin snorts a startled laugh, and gets a grin in response.

“More healing this will require, but stable you are for now. Now! The birth of your child you should see.”

Anakin opens his eyes to see Yoda still perched on his chair, looking worried and pensive, and to feel Plo’s hands on his shoulders, holding him up where he’s begun to slump.

Kix glares at him with the suspicious squint of someone who has had to perform emergency surgery far too often on someone after they proclaimed they were fine, and lets him into the room with Padmé. She looks uncomfortable and sweaty and grumpy, but it’s nothing like the horror he had seen in his dreams.

And his mother is there, holding her hand.

It takes hours, but Kix and Rex and his mom and Aayla are there the entire time, and eventually Padmé gives birth to a perfectly healthy little girl. She’s tired, but she’s smiling, and there’s no trace of the creeping sickness he had thought he had foreseen coming over her.

Padmé holds their daughter and smiles dimly at him, and at Rex, who she had yelled at several time for trying to excuse himself from the room. She’d only asked once if Anakin minded him being in there, and how could Anakin ever mind Rex being there with him?

Apparently he’d even been supporting Padmé in the way that Anakin himself should have been in the last few days of her pregnancy, while Anakin was sedated. If the Sith Lord’s influence (because now he’s sure that’s what those horrible vines had been representing in his mindscape) had still been active, he probably would have been jealous. As it is, he can only stare at Rex and fall a little more in love with him for caring for Padmé so kindly.

Anakin’s pretty sure that thinking about falling in love with someone else while he holds hands with his wife and makes faces at their newborn child is a little weird, but he can’t help it. Rex is holding his other hand. Actually, he grabbed it a few minutes ago and hasn’t let go, but it’s not like Rex is objecting.

The baby has fine dark hair and is still very red and squished looking, and objectively Anakin can admit she doesn’t look that beautiful, but she’s alive and so is Padmé and so the concept of her is the most beautiful thing he’s even known.

“What should we call her?” Padmé asks.

“Uh,” Anakin says. Somehow, in the whole complicated mess around realizing that he’s going to be a parent, he’s never actually thought of what to name the kid. From the look on her face, he knows that Padmé did the same thing.

Well, they’ve been busy.

“What is the custom for naming children on Naboo?” his mother asks, and Anakin turns to look at her. He still can’t believe she’s there.

Padmé shrugs, and that’s how Anakin knows that the painkillers they gave her are affecting her more than she’s letting show. “First name, last name of the higher-ranked parent. Sometimes a middle name or a second one, if the parents want.”

Shmi nods. “On Tatooine, there was the public name, the one we were known to the world as. Then there was the true name, the one only known by family and friends.”

“Oh,” Padmé says softly. “If – if you don’t mind, Ani, I’d like to have her have that.”

“Sure,” Anakin says. It’d feel weird for this tiny child not to have the protection of a public name, he realizes.

Padmé turns to look at Shmi, who is letting her granddaughter stare at a lock of her hair that’s draped over her shoulder. “Shmi, would you give her her public name? Maybe something from your culture? If that’s all right, Ani . . .”

Anakin just nods, his throat too tight to speak. Their daughter is _perfect_.

His mother looks surprised for a heartbeat, and then a smile blooms across her face. “I would be honored to, Padmé.” She surprises Anakin by giving him a hug, careful to avoid his hands still tangled with Padmé and Rex. “Now, I should go tell everyone hovering out in the hallway that it’s all over.”

He misses her warmth as soon as she leaves, but Rex moves a little closer.

“I can’t think of a name,” he admits.

Padmé snorts a laugh. “Neither can I!” She looks up and smiles at Rex. “Hey, Rex, do you want to give her a name? Then Anakin and I only have to think of one.”

Rex shies like a startled blurrg. “I – uh – are you sure you want me to name your daughter, Senator?”

“It’s Padmé, Rex,” she corrects. “And yes, I’m sure.”

“General?”

“Sure, Rex. I mean you’re practically part of the family already.” It just feels right, having Rex pick a name, to Anakin.

“I – I’ll give her a middle name, then?” Rex asks, and Anakin and Padmé nod enthusiastically. “Ok. I – hmm.” He gently pries his hands from theirs and begins to pace around the room, muttering to himself.

Anakin unashamedly watches him move for a moment, and then blushes when he meets Padmé eyes. She winks at him.

“What, you think he’s cute too?” he whispers into her ear, so Rex can’t hear.

“How can I not?” she answers. “But we can talk about that later, Ani. What should we name our daughter?”

They debate in whispers for at least fifteen minutes. Neither of them can think of a name they really love, that would be fitting for a family name of a child they know will be loved by so many.

“Let’s just smash our names together,” Padmé finally says. “Some people do that, and it’s really sweet.”

“Like, what? Padméni?”

“Hmm. That’s too much of me and not enough of you. What about, like, Animé?”

“I don’t really like how that sounds . . . oh! What about Padmakin? We can call her Padma for short.”

Padmé smiles up at him and it’s like the sun, he can’t help but kiss her. Their daughter flails around and bonks his chin with her tiny fist.

“Padmakin,” she repeats. “That’s pretty good. I like it too.”

“Hey, Rex!” Anakin says. “We’re going to call her Padmakin. Have you thought of anything yet?”

Rex wanders back to them and Padmakin looks at him with unfocused eyes, captivated by the stripes on his armor. “I think so,” he says hesitantly. He’s even blushing a little, and Anakin and Padmé both think it’s the most adorable they’ve ever seen him look. “Do you like Vhekad?”

“Vhekad,” Padmé repeats. “I love it.”

“Padmakin Vhekad. It sounds badass,” Anakin agrees.

He sits on one side of Padmé’s bed and Rex sits on the other.

“Hello, Padmakin,” Anakin coos.

“Olarom, Vhekad’ika,” Rex says, low and soft.

Padmé lets herself relax, finally, and smiles drowsily at all three of them. “Stay here?” she says quietly. “I mean all of you, unless you have to go.”

Anakin and Rex exchange glances.

“Of course, Padmé,” they answer.

~

He feels it when the child first reaches out and touches the Force, seconds after being born. It takes his breath away. The being that Skywalker and Amidala have created is _powerful_ , and more importantly, completely neutral in the Force. There’s no sign of a predisposition to lean to either side. That is incredibly rare.

Dooku politely congratulates Crechemaster Skywalker on the successful birth of her grandchild – a daughter, he learns. They have asked her to give the girl one of her names in the tradition of Skywalker’s family. She is leaning towards naming her Leia.

Everyone likes the name, telling Shmi that she should not be afraid to use it even if it is a name from a slave language, since it is beautiful and dignified. He finds himself agreeing.

He can feel that young Leia Amidala will one day be a formidable player in the power balance of the Force, whether she wants to or not, and he is glad that she will have a public name that sounds strong and confident.

He dreads hearing what her parents have come up with for her private name. Skywalker has the strangest sense of humor and Amidala must agree with him, or else she would not have agreed to marry him.

“Rex is with him,” Quinlan says when he voices his concern.

Dooku raises an eyebrow. “The only clone trooper I have ever heard of with a name that could remotely pass for normal is Commander Cody, and I understand that Obi-Wan inadvertently named him that when he misheard his original name. The clones think that names like Snap and Tango are perfectly acceptable.”

Quinlan shrugs. “Yeah, that’s true. But she’ll be happy and loved, no matter what they choose to call her, and that’s more important than anything, isn’t it?”

Dooku has to admit that it is.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, luke will exist. no, he will not be leia's twin in this series. it'll be ok, everyone. they'll still be siblings.


End file.
